February 6, 2013

In 2011 Jewell introduced Obama at the White House conference on “America’s Great Outdoor Initiative,” noting that the $289 billion outdoor-recreation industry supports 6.5 million jobs....

Jewell has pushed for land conservation in Washington state, where she lives, as well as nationally. She is a founding board member of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, which focuses on a stretch of land from Puget Sound across the Cascades, and helped lay out a plan for the National Park Service as a commissioner on the “National Parks Second Century Commission.”...

National Park Conservation Association President Tom Kiernan, on whose board Jewell sits, noted that she focused on how to broaden the national park system’s appeal as head of the “Connecting People and Parks Subcommittee” during its planning process. He described her overall approach as being “about connecting people and the out of doors, to the benefit of both.”

Jewell was also an engineer for Mobil Oil:

“Her experience as a petroleum engineer and business leader will bring a unique perspective to an office that is key to our nation’s energy portfolio,” said [Tim Wigley, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents independent oil and gas producers in the West]. “We hope to see a better balance of productive development on non-park, non-wilderness public lands that enhances the wealth of America and creates jobs while protecting the environment.”

From what I'm reading at the link, this is a nice change from the usual career politician who cares about environmentalism.

58 comments:

Agreed. First truly qualified cabinet member I've seen in a long time. This has always seemed idiotic to me where when it comes to the highest post in an organization it's often the person in the organization that understands the work least. It's especially true of government. See "Barack Obama".

Jewell should have smooth sailing. Lady is qualified. But she will be questioned with great interest about the extent she is willing to open up Fed lands to oil and gas drilling to aid in America's economic recovery. And hopefully get us to where 5 dollar plus gasoline and commensurate 30% inflation in consumer goods - is not our future.

I think the most important issue is that she ought, because of her oil and commerical land banking experience, to understand leasing of mineral rights, the permiting process and what uncertainity does to businesses in the oil business.

She also may be a counterweight to The Greens and Obama who keep wanting to add to the inventory of protected lands without understanding there are O&M costs for that. Better to spend Interior budget on the assets you have. e.g. keeping up the existing parks, and not letting them slide...

The problem with all these people though is political ambition. That is a poisonous addiction even for good people. I like people who say: OK, I'll do the job for X years and then I'm out of politics. It changes everything they do. Are there such people, or are they too hard to manipulate to hire for political jobs.

she probably has less time feeding at the government trough than anyone in the administration. she probably has more private sector experience than the rest of the administration combined. so it was probably the lady parts.

AprilApple said... Non-wilderness?So - lets drill for oil in the city or perhaps in the suburbs

April,

I suspect you are an Easterner. The DoI controls 12% of the land in the country and 36% of the mineral rights in the country. Out West, the % is higher. maybe 50% overall. Examples:- more than 70% of the entire states of NV and UT are Federal Lands under either BLM or FS.- 50% of Oregon- 35% of California

Like all appointments Obama makes, this looks largely political to me. I have no idea what Sally Jewell's actual qualification are for the post, but I suspect they are minimal. She sounds more green than development and no doubt she will carry the 'let them eat gruel' policy of the left into the job.

I don't expect miracles, but it's a good thing the administration is adding someone whose job performance was once judged by profit and loss. The number of current administration members with previous business experience in much lower than previous Democratic administrations.

I had no idea LA was a giant ball of oil. Thanks for the link, Paddy O.I have some questions. Where are the hidden refineries? I wonder how much oil sits under oh say - Sean Penn's mansion? Wait - we run on oil? It's OK to drill in LA, but not in the middle of no-where?

She is a great choice in my opinion. 1. She comes from the private sector. 2. She sells stuff to people who use it in the outdoors or who aspire to. 3. She recognizes that people who buy this equipment and who actually use it are people who respect the wilderness but do not see it as the private enclave of environmentalists working for non-profits. 4. She understands that the oil companies spend a lot of money to ensure that their drilling and conveyance techniques are as safe as possible and that they are anything but cavalier about the environment.

Has one single pick of Obama's cabinet or admin spots ever NOT been political? I see a lot of commenters here who seem to want to believe that this pick based on what little we know, and not on what we don't know.

I'm holding out for more information. Everything this guy does has a political angle.

Seriously though, people who don't know anything but have a political leaning are worse in these positions, because their bag of ideas don't just encompass the the wrong headed ideologically, they also include those ideas that smarter people already know are ridiculous. It's not like the alternative was him nominating some wildcatter.

She does a couple of things. One is cater to the conservationist crowd, not the EPA/Envirokook crowd. They are already howling at the moon for blood on why Urkel chose her. Secondly, she was an engineer at Mobile, that means she has an in with Big Oil on some level and Urkel will use that through her to get to them. Thirdly, she's a woman, and it will take the edge off of his cabinet being largely old white men.

I own stock in Exxon-Mobile, so this is good news to me. The good thing about crony capitalism is you don't have to guess who the winners are going to be. You just have to look and see who is sitting in Obama's lap. I have made back almost all the money I lost in the stock market crash by investing in General Electric, Duke Energy, and Bank of America.

Garage: Didn't see that, thanks. Sierra Club is a great organization that often goes off the rails. I have been a member for forty years. I would no more follow their political suggestions than I would that of the NRA but like the NRA they are willing to fight for what they believe and I respect that. In both organizations.

It seems to me that the Sierra Club and the NRA should have little to disagree about based on what their core motivations are. Yet the people who happen to populate those organizations probably disagree about most everything.

Seems she would be as interested in people being able to use and enjoy the wilderness as in preserving it. This would be more inline with many of the hunting/fishing/camping promoting organizations that have contributed greatly to the preservation of our wild lands.

But do we really need to "broaden" the National Park system? Doesn't the federal government own enough land? Interior seems to exhibit almost the same sort of mindset as a hoarder when it comes to land. If it looks pretty, we have to take it. Does America have larger problems right now? Don't we have enough? Could the states possibly manage some of these lands more efficiently than the federal government?

She studied enviro-feminist literature and political economy at Obama State University, worked for two years at the Program for America as budget director, found a man to sire her child and has been since leading the re-employment program at Solyndra.

Doesn't she get an appointment?

Maybe just an invite to the White House Stevie Wonder bash or something?

"...Seattle-based REI. The trendy Pacific Northwest outdoor equipment retailer's progressive CEO and Democratic campaign donor, Sally Jewell, appeared with President Obama in 2009 to tout White House health care reform initiatives. Two years later, REI snagged a waiver to protect the health benefits of a whopping 1,180 workers from the very tentacles of the big government bureaucrats Jewell embraced at Obama's roundtable."